Well I have had friends that have been fans of Monster Hunter for years. Every time a new one comes out, they all loose their fucking minds over the game and binge 50 hours of game time in a couple of days into the title. Admittedly I have tried to join them as the multiplayer aspect of the games is really rather good. However the last few games we've gotten in the States, have merely been 3DS games and there is something really lacking in those titles without the grandeur of a decent screen. And as a result I could never stick with the games long enough to get over their horrible learning curves.

However that problem is kind of gone in Monster Hunter World. for the first time in a long time, the game is out on major systems and it is a beautiful game. So now that the barrier of having to deal with the title on a DS is over, have I been able to get into a Monster hunter game?

Yes. But I still have problems with it.

You see Monster Hunter is a complex game when you really get down to it. Sure, in the beginning you can just go out and fight the games first few monsters without too much trouble. These initial monsters are more about learning to understand telegraphed attacks and avoiding them rather than understanding your weapon's movesets and how to maximize damage on monsters.

But then the game just dumps a big load of shit upon the player, and it's kind of overwhelming for me as a new player. There is so much that goes into fighting a monster that I have a hard time remembering everything I should do to prepare and end up fighting the monster at least partially unprepared.

From the deep crafting system that not only allows you to create loads of different armor that you can mix and match, to crafting weapons with different elemental or status causing effects, to being able to craft hundreds of minor items from loads of different potions to different types of ammo. And the crazy thing is, everything is important at some point in the game.

Traps and different status causing items are important when you have to trap your prey instead of outright kill it. Different weapons are important to have at the ready because different monsters are weaker to different damage types. This isn't just about elemental damages, but also different actual damage typing like slashing or blunt type damages. Bringing the right weapon for the right monster is important depending on the goal of the monster. For example you'll want a good slashing weapon if you are trying to cut off tails or a blunt weapon might be better to break apart armor plating.

It all piles onto the player and while it's briefly explained during the game, I don't feel that it is given to the player in a useable way. Instead it all feels like a big info dump that the player will most likely skip through rather than understand. I have friends explaining all this shit to me and I still don't really understand it.

However if you can get through all the noise, and understand the game's mechanics, there is a lot of fun to be had hunting the wide array of monsters in the game. And taking down different dragons to make armor out of them is satisfying. There is a lot to love about Monster Hunter World, and I can see that.

But, I would be lying if I said I wasn't struggling to grasp at the mechanics and trying to figure out how to fight with my weapon of choice. I feel like the game could do better at drip feeding newer players mechanics than it actually does.

I think I'll definitely end up trying the game but not anytime soon as I have too many games right now. I heard there's a lot less grinding, which is good because I hate grinding and games generally wasting my time. I hope the monster fights are a combination of Horizon and Dragons Dogma. I have watched a few monster fights, probably early fights, but it seems like just pummeling the monster for quite awhile until dead. I don't really care if the fights are lengthy as long as there's like a step-by-step procedure to take them down. For example like whittle away at a hard armor plate over their heart to expose the heart, then you do massive damage attacking the exposed heart. From what I've seen so far, I really haven't seen stuff like that. There's some cool stuff happening but more than anything it's just dodge and then get in some attacks. I really don't like big boss fights where you just hack away at like a dragon's chin until they're out of health like Dark Souls.

I went from dislikng this game, to liking it, and then just not really wanting to get involved anymore.

It took a while for me to get a feel for the combat, which is kind of floaty and unresponsive. It's also weird that there's no jump button eventhough your character can clearly jump. And yeah, the game dumps so many fucking gameplay mechanics on you through textboxes it's hard to get a proper grasp on any of it. I ended up ignoring a lot of it for fear of going insane trying to juggle all of it in the back of my mind.

I ultimately managed to sync up with it quite well, and I had a decent time going out fighting monsters and getting new gear. But then a couple of things happened that extinguished most of my enthusiasm. First I quickly realized this whole game was just going to be a loot grind. Then I discovered that if you fight a monster (not tied to a quest) for too long, they'll just escape and disappear. Even when they're on their last legs. I fought one of those furry-backed T-rexes for at least a half hour, only to suddenly have it dig into the ground and vanish. This happened twice. And the final straw was when I activated a quest where I didn't know exactly what was going to be invovled. When I realized it wasn't up to my liking I opted to cancel out of it, only to find out that I couldn't in anyway. I either had to finish a quest which was going to be complete slog, or wait 50 minutes for the quest timer to run out. I eventually just shut down the game, but since I hadn't saved, because I couldn't save, because the activated quest wouldn't let me, I lost a whole bunch a progress.

I'm not sure what to think of it, granted I wouldn't get it till it showed up on pc. However, I burned myself out on Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii, when I got Monster Hunter on the WiiU I just couldn't get the urge at all to play it anymore, so I'm thinking I might just be burned out on the franchise at this point. It looks great, but yeah, not sure if I would have fun with it anymore.

Casual Shinji:First I quickly realized this whole game was just going to be a loot grind.

That's really disappointing. I don't get why games just can't have great gameplay be the reason for you to keep playing, that's why early multiplayer games were addicting, just great gameplay without the bullshit of getting the next marginally better thing.

Casual Shinji:First I quickly realized this whole game was just going to be a loot grind.

That's really disappointing. I don't get why games just can't have great gameplay be the reason for you to keep playing, that's why early multiplayer games were addicting, just great gameplay without the bullshit of getting the next marginally better thing.

On its own the loot grind is fun enough, but along with the rest of the issues, and the lack of story/narrative/lore, it's really just not worth it for me. It just feels like kinda a road to nowhere.

Casual Shinji:When I realized it wasn't up to my liking I opted to cancel out of it, only to find out that I couldn't in anyway. I either had to finish a quest which was going to be complete slog, or wait 50 minutes for the quest timer to run out. I eventually just shut down the game, but since I hadn't saved, because I couldn't save, because the activated quest wouldn't let me, I lost a whole bunch a progress.

...Eh? The hell? There's got to be a way to cancel the quest, it's been in the last few games. Maybe you have to do it from your base camp instead of a convenient menu prompt this time?

Casual Shinji:When I realized it wasn't up to my liking I opted to cancel out of it, only to find out that I couldn't in anyway. I either had to finish a quest which was going to be complete slog, or wait 50 minutes for the quest timer to run out. I eventually just shut down the game, but since I hadn't saved, because I couldn't save, because the activated quest wouldn't let me, I lost a whole bunch a progress.

...Eh? The hell? There's got to be a way to cancel the quest, it's been in the last few games. Maybe you have to do it from your base camp instead of a convenient menu prompt this time?

Ok, I don't know what happened to you, but you can definitely cancel quests. In the menu, you scroll over once and there will be "return to base" (keep what you found and lose what you used) and "abandon quest" (game acts like you never took the quest).

Thanks for sharing your thoughts man. I'm definitely interested in the game but am torn between getting it for my almost never used Xbone or just waiting for PC. I kind of feel like getting it for console just so I have an excuse to use it for something other than playing Forza or watching 4k movies.

I was interested in this game until I played the beta and that pretty much killed my interest. I didn't like the combat at all, it felt a bit clunky and not at all intuitive, so I killed one monster and deleted the beta. Oh well...

Casual Shinji:When I realized it wasn't up to my liking I opted to cancel out of it, only to find out that I couldn't in anyway. I either had to finish a quest which was going to be complete slog, or wait 50 minutes for the quest timer to run out. I eventually just shut down the game, but since I hadn't saved, because I couldn't save, because the activated quest wouldn't let me, I lost a whole bunch a progress.

...Eh? The hell? There's got to be a way to cancel the quest, it's been in the last few games. Maybe you have to do it from your base camp instead of a convenient menu prompt this time?

If it was there I sure as hell couldn't find it. It wasn't in the pause menu, and when I returned to one of the encampments there wasn't anything there either. So if it is possible, it's really obtuse... like most of the game fittingly enough.

Maybe this is me wanting too much, but when I'm playing a game where I need to quit out of a quest in order to return to base camp, save, or quit the game, then I expect that option/warning to pop up when I try to return to base camp, save, or quit the game.

Casual Shinji:If it was there I sure as hell couldn't find it. It wasn't in the pause menu, and when I returned to one of the encampments there wasn't anything there either. So if it is possible, it's really obtuse... like most of the game fittingly enough.

Maybe this is me wanting too much, but when I'm playing a game where I need to quit out of a quest in order to return to base camp, save, or quit the game, then I expect that option/warning to pop up when I try to return to base camp, save, or quit the game.

Did you hit any of the shoulder buttons in the pause menu? I know it's a stupid thing to ask, but, well... I've used that option many times, the game never locked me into anything during my 50 hours of playing it so far

Elvis Starburst:Did you hit any of the shoulder buttons in the pause menu? I know it's a stupid thing to ask, but, well... I've used that option many times, the game never locked me into anything during my 50 hours of playing it so far

Could be. I combed through all the game options I could find though, from the crafting tab to the save tab.

Casual Shinji:I went from dislikng this game, to liking it, and then just not really wanting to get involved anymore.

It took a while for me to get a feel for the combat, which is kind of floaty and unresponsive. It's also weird that there's no jump button eventhough your character can clearly jump. And yeah, the game dumps so many fucking gameplay mechanics on you through textboxes it's hard to get a proper grasp on any of it. I ended up ignoring a lot of it for fear of going insane trying to juggle all of it in the back of my mind.

I ultimately managed to sync up with it quite well, and I had a decent time going out fighting monsters and getting new gear. But then a couple of things happened that extinguished most of my enthusiasm. First I quickly realized this whole game was just going to be a loot grind. Then I discovered that if you fight a monster (not tied to a quest) for too long, they'll just escape and disappear. Even when they're on their last legs. I fought one of those furry-backed T-rexes for at least a half hour, only to suddenly have it dig into the ground and vanish. This happened twice. And the final straw was when I activated a quest where I didn't know exactly what was going to be invovled. When I realized it wasn't up to my liking I opted to cancel out of it, only to find out that I couldn't in anyway. I either had to finish a quest which was going to be complete slog, or wait 50 minutes for the quest timer to run out. I eventually just shut down the game, but since I hadn't saved, because I couldn't save, because the activated quest wouldn't let me, I lost a whole bunch a progress.

After that bullshit I just said 'no thanks game'.

The fun to be had is playing a party of friends and challenging the most largest and deadly of monsters.

We fought against beasts like this in Monster HUnter 3:

In Monster Hunter 2:

The grind is worth it when you end up being worthy to do these kinds of bosses. The game has lore, but it was never meant to be a deep story telling game, I mean what deep lore and storytelling can there be in a game all about MONSTER HUNTING. This is a gameplay first RPG, heck I question calling it an RPG.

The fun to be had is playing a party of friends and challenging the most largest and deadly of monsters.

Your examples are awful.

Spolier'd for 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

Akantor is one I like a fair bit personally, but the 4U version could've been picked instead of F2 gameplay. The rest? Myeeehhh, yeah, you got the better picks for sure. I know every hunt is personal preference, but I'd rather spend my hunting time taking a Dalamadur to the face rather than a Ceadeus

I've been having a blast with it. I really enjoy facing a monster and having a tough time, then encountering it later when I have much better gear and just shredding it. It does that really well. Also, it looks gorgeous. I really like watching how the monsters interact with each other. I've never played Monster Hunter so I don't have much basis for comparison, but I'm really enjoying Monster Hunter: World.

Akantor is one I like a fair bit personally, but the 4U version could've been picked instead of F2 gameplay. The rest? Myeeehhh, yeah, you got the better picks for sure. I know every hunt is personal preference, but I'd rather spend my hunting time taking a Dalamadur to the face rather than a Ceadeus

As much as i liked Ceadeus its probably the worst example as underwater hunts will likely never return.

Akantor is one I like a fair bit personally, but the 4U version could've been picked instead of F2 gameplay. The rest? Myeeehhh, yeah, you got the better picks for sure. I know every hunt is personal preference, but I'd rather spend my hunting time taking a Dalamadur to the face rather than a Ceadeus

As much as i liked Ceadeus its probably the worst example as underwater hunts will likely never return.

Bah, Underwater Hunts was awesome. It just adds more to the monster variety avaliable to the game.

gigastar:14 years of history in this franchise and people are only just realizing theres a loot grind.

Words. Come back. I need you to express this.

Phoenixmgs:I hope the monster fights are a combination of Horizon and Dragons Dogma.

Its like neither.

If I were to play World, it would be my first MH game. I heard about the grinding in series, but I also watched a few reviews of World saying the grinding was a lot less prominent. Also, someone (I forget who) said just recently here (replying to a post of mine) that Horizon took a lot from MH with regards to combat. Is MH combat just basically hack away at monster until dead and dodge when needed? I've watched a few fights and I've seen some cool shit you can do but the cool stuff is definitely infrequent vs the just attack and dodge combat that makes up most of the fight (from what I've seen at least).

Samtemdo8:The grind is worth it when you end up being worthy to do these kinds of bosses.

Why can't the game just give me the good stuff without making trudge through the bad? A lot of games have this issue. I don't have to do this for any other medium. I don't have to trudge through the first 2 seasons or so of a TV show for it to get good. Something like Shadow of the Colossus is just 16 boss fights and that's it because killing cannon fodder enemies or having to farm every colossus to get some drop would only artificially lengthen the game.

Cycloptomese:I really enjoy facing a monster and having a tough time, then encountering it later when I have much better gear and just shredding it.

You shouldn't be better at fighting the same monsters just because you have better gear. For example, in Horizon, you don't really get better gear (with regards to damage increases), you get better at fighting the enemies from prior experience and knowing their weaknesses and being able to exploit that much more efficiently. And new gear opens up more combat options vs increasing your DPS. So when you go and wreck a Stormbird, you do so because you learned how to fight it and not because you now have a +100 bow.

Phoenixmgs:I hope the monster fights are a combination of Horizon and Dragons Dogma.

Its like neither.

If I were to play World, it would be my first MH game. I heard about the grinding in series, but I also watched a few reviews of World saying the grinding was a lot less prominent. Also, someone (I forget who) said just recently here (replying to a post of mine) that Horizon took a lot from MH with regards to combat. Is MH combat just basically hack away at monster until dead and dodge when needed? I've watched a few fights and I've seen some cool shit you can do but the cool stuff is definitely infrequent vs the just attack and dodge combat that makes up most of the fight (from what I've seen at least).

Literally the only similarities Horizon has to Monster Hunter is that theres big wildlife to kill and you can use bits you get from them to improve your own gear.

End of similarities.

Horizon is, first and foremost, a third person shooter. Your weapons are one of half a dozen variations of shooters that you can load up with different kinds of ammo.

Monster Hunter is primarily a melee focused action game. Not like Dark Souls either, as melee weapons all have more than just a light attack and heavy attack. Not like Dragons Dogma (or its real grandaddy, Devil May Cry) as you wont be holding down a modifier key to unleash your special attacks.

The 11 melee weapons you can choose from all have distinctive mechanics to them and if you dont learn to exploit the weapon mechanics then youre going to get your shit pushed in. As an example its not simply good enough to fill up a Longswords spirit gauge. Youll need to use that built up gauge to use a spirit roundslash to not only increase the weapons overall damage, but also enable all of its combos.

There are, of course, the two types of bowgun and the bow in MH, but those two particular weapons are on a whole other level than Horizon is at, not just the sheer number of ammo types available for bowguns and shot types for bow, but also the specific tricks each of these weapons have going for them. Not to mention that gunners will still be engaging at the same range everyone else is at. And yes, that does include point blank as well.

Evasion and (for the weapons that are capable) guard are obviously present for not taking damage, but evasion is extremely exacting with those delicious i-frames and guard users will still need to contend with the fact that many attacks will still deal partial damage to them, as well as stamina depletion.

gigastar:Literally the only similarities Horizon has to Monster Hunter is that theres big wildlife to kill and you can use bits you get from them to improve your own gear.

End of similarities.

Horizon is, first and foremost, a third person shooter. Your weapons are one of half a dozen variations of shooters that you can load up with different kinds of ammo.

Monster Hunter is primarily a melee focused action game. Not like Dark Souls either, as melee weapons all have more than just a light attack and heavy attack. Not like Dragons Dogma (or its real grandaddy, Devil May Cry) as you wont be holding down a modifier key to unleash your special attacks.

The 11 melee weapons you can choose from all have distinctive mechanics to them and if you dont learn to exploit the weapon mechanics then youre going to get your shit pushed in. As an example its not simply good enough to fill up a Longswords spirit gauge. Youll need to use that built up gauge to use a spirit roundslash to not only increase the weapons overall damage, but also enable all of its combos.

There are, of course, the two types of bowgun and the bow in MH, but those two particular weapons are on a whole other level than Horizon is at, not just the sheer number of ammo types available for bowguns and shot types for bow, but also the specific tricks each of these weapons have going for them. Not to mention that gunners will still be engaging at the same range everyone else is at. And yes, that does include point blank as well.

Evasion and (for the weapons that are capable) guard are obviously present for not taking damage, but evasion is extremely exacting with those delicious i-frames and guard users will still need to contend with the fact that many attacks will still deal partial damage to them, as well as stamina depletion.

I'm much more concerned with how you actually take down the monsters vs how the weapons work. What I enjoyed about Horizon and Dragon's Dogma was the methods used to take down the enemies made sense. In Dragon's Dogma, you just don't hack away at the chin of a dragon to slowly whittle away its health pool. I want some sorta procedural way to take down the monsters regardless if the weapon mechanics are extremely deep. Stuff like cutting off a tail or damaging a leg (causing a limp) are nice and all but if that's sorta it with regards to what you can do to the monsters, then that really isn't enough for me.

I'm much more concerned with how you actually take down the monsters vs how the weapons work. What I enjoyed about Horizon and Dragon's Dogma was the methods used to take down the enemies made sense. In Dragon's Dogma, you just don't hack away at the chin of a dragon to slowly whittle away its health pool. I want some sorta procedural way to take down the monsters regardless if the weapon mechanics are extremely deep. Stuff like cutting off a tail or damaging a leg (causing a limp) are nice and all but if that's sorta it with regards to what you can do to the monsters, then that really isn't enough for me.

It hasn't been talked about much in the thread, but there are traps and environmental dangers that you can take advantage of during hunts too. You can lure enemies to certain spots with drugged meat and possibly paralyze them, giving you a free combo or 2. You can use hanging boulders to inflict massive damage if the monster is careless enough to walk under it. Monsters can even break large pieces of the environment to open up new pathways and give you chances to climb and jump onto the monster for a mounted attack. You can also lure monsters around the map so that they fight other large monsters. All of that plays a part in weakening a monster to the degree that it's broken and scarred and limping away from you before you finally capture or kill it. There are a good handful of tools you can make to assist you in hunts like explosives, traps, stat boosters and the useful slingshot ammo's that have various uses from lighting up caves to knocking flying monsters out of the sky.

There are benefits to causing the limping and cutting off a tail beyond the obvious effects of limited movement and the loss of attacks. You're creating new weak points to deal extra damage to the monster. A rock hard tail becomes a gaping wound once you cut it off, your weapons can bounce off armour but after enough hits, it will shatter and you have a new area you can attack "safely" instead of trying to focus on the face/tail, which are usually the more dangerous zones. And as you're doing all that, you're collecting materials for new gear, which frequently requires specific pieces later on, thus giving you new reasons to attack monsters in certain ways to keep battles from being monotonous "swing swing dodge, repeat."

From what I can tell, you seem to want the hunts to feel like an actual experience, which if you put in the time and effort into making tools, I feel you can get. I think the main roadblock for you is in how much prep time is needed to hunt a monster, compared to just using knowledge of their weak points to kill it. It's just more time consuming than Dogma since I think it's a lot easier to focus on killing a Chimera piece by piece than a Barroth who has natural armour you have to work through, and also you can't climb onto monsters any time you want.

Ah The monster hunter Series, I've been a fan since the first psp release and been playing ever since.

Though i will be honest the first time i played it i hated it. The combat felt clunky and the yian kut ku was kicking the shit out of me, a week or so later i gave it another go and realized I was just not used to this type of combat system and it was me that was shit not the system, once i got over the initial learning curve it was awesome.

Very few games have such a fluid combat system where its all about your skill with your weapon of choice and learning the attack patterns and tells of the monster attacks.

yes there is a grind but that's most games with a progression system and to be honest i like it, it would be boring as hell if you got everything you needed from 1 fight with a monster there would be no point in fighting them again otherwise.

Not quite sure what some of you are saying about the combat system being boring or simple, i get that everyone has different tastes but even if i hated the game I would not describe it as simple or boring.

For those complaining about the progression and that you should not be able to kill things easily because of gear I think you have the wrong idea about it, you cant get that gear without killing tons of monsters and if you are using end game gear to fight a low rank monster of course you should be able to kick the shit out of them not because its OP but because low rank monsters are waaaaaaay weaker than high rank and G Rank monsters, and hunting a low rank monster will give you nothing of value once your that far into the game.

To sum up why i like it though is the massive amount of customization and choice in gear and skills, and the fact that the combat system is all player skill based if you miss its because you messed up if you get hit its because you failed which to me is a very satisfying

Phoenixmgs:I'm much more concerned with how you actually take down the monsters vs how the weapons work. What I enjoyed about Horizon and Dragon's Dogma was the methods used to take down the enemies made sense. In Dragon's Dogma, you just don't hack away at the chin of a dragon to slowly whittle away its health pool. I want some sorta procedural way to take down the monsters regardless if the weapon mechanics are extremely deep. Stuff like cutting off a tail or damaging a leg (causing a limp) are nice and all but if that's sorta it with regards to what you can do to the monsters, then that really isn't enough for me.

The combat in Monster Hunter World is deeper than Horizon and Dragon's Dogma, but also not nearly as "crunchy". It's a lot more about the inner workings and exploites of the weapons and how to use them against monsters, than knocking up three arrows in Horizon, getting that perfect shot, and watching your target get knocked off balance/crumple into a heap of scrape.

Phoenixmgs:I'm much more concerned with how you actually take down the monsters vs how the weapons work. What I enjoyed about Horizon and Dragon's Dogma was the methods used to take down the enemies made sense. In Dragon's Dogma, you just don't hack away at the chin of a dragon to slowly whittle away its health pool. I want some sorta procedural way to take down the monsters regardless if the weapon mechanics are extremely deep. Stuff like cutting off a tail or damaging a leg (causing a limp) are nice and all but if that's sorta it with regards to what you can do to the monsters, then that really isn't enough for me.

Well the mantra of 'hit and dont be hit' obviously applies.

In World theres a much greater emphasis on using the environment to your advantage, but i have limited knowledge on this subject as i wont be able to actually play the game until much later this year.

I'd always heard about Monster Hunter games and had looked up on occasion over the years, but I've never actually played one. As others have said, it always just seemed like a shallow loot grind fest, ala, Borderlands (though, I actually really enjoyed Borderlands), but without any kind of meaningful reason for doing so. No story or lore to add depth, just an inanely complex crafting/resource system, which seems to have a complexity addiction for the sake of it. I guess the fun of these games is the multiplayer, as a group of friends get together to slay massive beasts, but, I don't have anyone to really play with, so that whole aspect is lost on me.

It's a shame really, the combat looks good and I'm sure hunting monsters with friends and acquiring more powerful weapons and such is probably a lot of fun, but there's just not enough here to keep me interested, and playing it solo is probably a bit crap.

I feel like the people calling Monster Hunter a loot grind are missing the point. Yes it's true that the story is mostly token, but the point of the game isn't to grind loot, it's to hunt monsters. If you want some compelling story or reason to justify hunting the monsters... you're going to be disappointed. But if you're fine with fighting monsters just because it's challenging and fun, then you'll enjoy it.

I think Monster Hunter World also took a step back in terms of story, because in previous Monster Hunter games basically every single hunt would be tied to a quest, so there would be some sort of backstory/reason behind the hunt, but in Monster Hunter World the number of quest-based hunts has been drastically decreased, so a lot of hunts are just randomly killing this monster for no reason.

Also is the crafting system really that complicated? You get materials from the environment and killing monsters, you turn them into gear and items. Pretty simple.

Bad Player:I feel like the people calling Monster Hunter a loot grind are missing the point. Yes it's true that the story is mostly token, but the point of the game isn't to grind loot, it's to hunt monsters. If you want some compelling story or reason to justify hunting the monsters... you're going to be disappointed. But if you're fine with fighting monsters just because it's challenging and fun, then you'll enjoy it.

That's the thing that surprises me a lot in this thread. I 100% understand why some folk need a bit more depth or reason to do some things in games, but honestly... Hunting monsters in this game is just fun. I have a great time going into a quest and taking these things down. I don't need a super in depth story, I just want the satisfaction of taking one of these beasts down. And after a tough fight, it feels good landing that final blow.

On a note about the loot thing, I have around 55 hours clocked now, and the most I ever needed to "grind" for anything was maybe 2-3 re-hunts of a particular monster. Otherwise, I get all my stuff from other hunts, or playing with friends. Though to their dismay, my luck has always been rather good with these games at times when it comes to getting the super rare stuff completely unintentionally... And no, the loot thing isn't complex, it just seems complex cause there's a lot of stuff. "You need X and Y material to make Z item." That's it. "You need A, B, C, and D material to make this armor piece, and it comes from the same monster, so go kick its ass." DONE

Elvis Starburst:That's the thing that surprises me a lot in this thread. I 100% understand why some folk need a bit more depth or reason to do some things in games, but honestly... Hunting monsters in this game is just fun. I have a great time going into a quest and taking these things down. I don't need a super in depth story, I just want the satisfaction of taking one of these beasts down. And after a tough fight, it feels good landing that final blow.

I would feel the same way if most of the monster fights didn't last as long as they did, and if the monsters couldn't simply escape when they decided they had enough. After whittling away at one of these guys for half an hour, having to chase it down every couple of minutes, the excitement has kind of died down for me.

I also don't really understand why there needs to be a time limit to the quests.

Casual Shinji:I would feel the same way if most of the monster fights didn't last as long as they did, and if the monsters couldn't simply escape when they decided they had enough. After whittling away at one of these guys for half an hour, having to chase it down every couple of minutes, the excitement has kind of died down for me.

I also don't really understand why there needs to be a time limit to the quests.

A monster running off to recuperate after getting its face kicked in doesn't sound that absurd of an idea to me personally, but eh. This game feels better with that sort of thing since there's no loading screens between parts of the map now.

Half an hour seems like a long time to be in a hunt. Unless some of that time is taken up doing gathering and such, I don't often find myself in a hunt for more than 15 minutes, give or take a few extra minutes. But sometimes finding the monster can be a bit tough, so I'm not exactly sure how your hunts have gone. The time limit exists for a few reasons, but one of them is so you can't cheese the hunt by doing short attack and run tactics to whittle the monster away endlessly. You have a timer, so you gotta get in there and actually fight the thing or fail the quest. 50 minutes, just shy of an hour should be more than enough to beat any monster.

Maybe we should try hunting together a few times. Can help me get a grasp of how things are going in your hunts. Maybe I could offer some advice to help make things smoother for you, if you're interested

It is a bit of a learning curve, for sure. And while its seemingly gentler in the beginning than its predecessors, it doesn't take too long to ramp up that curve a lot. Also the tutorials need some polish, the textbox ones aren't great and the in-mission prompts have a tendency to not actually show up. They're supposed to stop after enough play, but amongst 5 or 6 people in our group, we've all had one or two that just didn't come up only to learn from another one getting it.

Monsters do the instant burrow thing only if you'e in expedition mode, which is more for establishing camps or farming resources (although once you get your garden and safaris, farming resources isn't a big thing). Its an option to fight them, but generally you do that via Investigations rather then free roam.

Phoenixmgs:I think I'll definitely end up trying the game but not anytime soon as I have too many games right now. I heard there's a lot less grinding, which is good because I hate grinding and games generally wasting my time. I hope the monster fights are a combination of Horizon and Dragons Dogma. I have watched a few monster fights, probably early fights, but it seems like just pummeling the monster for quite awhile until dead. I don't really care if the fights are lengthy as long as there's like a step-by-step procedure to take them down. For example like whittle away at a hard armor plate over their heart to expose the heart, then you do massive damage attacking the exposed heart. From what I've seen so far, I really haven't seen stuff like that. There's some cool stuff happening but more than anything it's just dodge and then get in some attacks. I really don't like big boss fights where you just hack away at like a dragon's chin until they're out of health like Dark Souls.

Other then you can't for instance, shoot off a gun and blow the **** out of the monster, I'd compare it to Horizon. Some parts are specifically breakable, which often disables various attacks. Any part of the monster will chip away with enough hits reducing defense though. Enough damage overall will let you simply trap and tranquilize the monster for a capture (usually well before you kill it).

You won't get a monster down for a "Press O to execute" prompt, and your big hits are more done by comboing well and hitting a weakened spot then shooting a fuel tank or something similar. You might be able to kill real early monsters by just dodging and hitting whatever, but later game or on missions with tighter timers, not going for the weak points/using enviroment/items will be such a damage degrade that it'll mean failure.